LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The city of Louisville will now have its own Department of Transportation.

What You Need To Know

  • Metro Louisville is forming its own Department of Transportation
  • Louisville DOT will be a part of Public Works Department
  • Project managers will focus solely in metro infrastructure proposals and development
  • Mayor Craig Greenberg says new staff positions are being created

Mayor Craig Greenberg, D-Louisville, and the director of Metro Public Works announced Tuesday the new office will help the city plan and execute large-scale projects often with state and federal money attached.

It’s not that Louisville has been missing out on getting major federal funding for infrastructure projects, Greenberg said the city doesn’t have the dedicated staff to push projects through as fast as it could.

“Actually, we’ve been getting the money,” Greenberg said. “We have not been using the money.”

Greenberg said with dedicated project managers, the city can move through the phases of bidding, planning and building faster.

“Our challenge is then investing the money in the projects that we want to do as rapidly as we possibly can. So, this will help us continue to actually invest the federal and state funds that we are able to secure for securing Louisville’s infrastructure,” Greenberg added.

Jennifer Kern is Louisville’s Public Works Director, which will oversee the newly formed DOT.

“The idea is we would have a dedicated project manager and that would be their job. It is only projects,” Kern said.

Speaking of the project manager roles, Kern said, “They take projects from start to finish and it’s that refocus, not re-prioritization, but refocus on the way that we apply that effort toward getting projects done.”

According to Mayor Greenberg, there’s a backlog of work with already secured monies.

“When I took office as mayor, I believe it was we had a $100-million-dollar backlog of funded projects that had not yet been completed because we didn’t have enough engineers, and other project managers within the Public Works Department that could help execute on these projects,” Greenberg said.

Both Greenberg and Kern say the new DOT will affect future projects the most. Louisville’s latest budget included $500,000 for the forthcoming Metro DOT and includes four new full-time positions. The newly formed Louisville Department of Transportation will officially open in Jan. 2025.

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